Crew seating arrangement

Flight

During the flight, designated
STS-77, Endeavour and a six-person crew performed
microgravity research aboard the commercially owned and operated SPACEHAB
Module. Endeavour's crew also deployed and retrieved a research satellite and
performed rendezvous operations with a test satellite.Over 90 percent of
the payloads aboard Endeavour were sponsored by
NASA's Office of Space Access and Technology,
Washington, DC, through its Commercial Space Centers and their industrial
affiliates. Primary payloads included experiments flying aboard the
pressurized, commercially-developed SPACEHAB Module, the Inflatable Antenna
Experiment deployed aboard the free-flying
SPARTAN-207 carrier spacecraft, and a suite of four
technology experiments known as "TEAMS", in the Shuttle's payload
bay.

SPARTAN 207 (SP207/IAE) was one of the primary
payloads on mission
STS-77 and the most ambitious
SPARTAN mission to date. The
STS-77 crew deployed and tested - as the
SPARTAN spacecraft's sole payload - the Inflatable
Antenna Experiment (IAE).This mission's
SPARTAN configuration was unique in that the IAE was
in an additional separate unit that was ejected once the experiment has
completed. Only the
SPARTAN carrier with the experiment recorders was
returned to the cargo bay.The IAE was a large inflatable antenna 50
feet (14 meters) in diameter which was mounted on three 92-foot (28 meter)
struts. Once in low-Earth orbit, the
SPARTAN became a platform for the antenna which, when
inflated in space, having roughly the size of a tennis court.Because the
mass and stowed (uninflated) volume of inflatable components was many times
less than an equivalent solid structure, inflatable structures have the
potential to significantly reduce by 10 to 100 times the cost of future
missions using these components. This inflatable antenna weighed only about 132
pounds (60 kilograms) and the operational version may be developed for less
than $10 million - a substantial savings over current mechanically deployable
hard structures that may cost as much as $200 million to develop and deliver to
space.Additionally, the
SPARTAN carrier itself was implementing new
technologies. It was testing a Solid-State Recorder using flash EEPROM memory,
developed under a Small Business Innovative Research contract between Goddard
and SEAKR Engineering, Inc. of Englewood, CO. Some of the electronics boxes on
the
SPARTAN carrier implemented a Parylene coating process
that allowed the use of commercial plastic integrated circuits
on-orbit.

The
SPARTAN-207 satellite was deployed on Flight Day two
of the mission. Mission Specialist Mario
Runco
released the
SPARTAN using the shuttle's mechanical arm, and
Commander John
Casper backed Endeavour away from the satellite.Once
Endeavour reached a distance of 400 feet directly in front of the
SPARTAN, John
Casper held Endeavour's position while experiment operations
with the
SPARTAN began. Slightly less than an hour later, John
Casper began a partial flyaround of the satellite,
maintaining a distance of about 400 feet, moving to a point directly above
SPARTAN. This partial flyaround aligned Endeavour
within the transmission direction of the experiment work with the Inflatable
Antenna Experiment.Once Endeavour was directly above
SPARTAN at a distance of 400 feet, the IAE was
inflated. Endeavour performed stationkeep 400 feet above
SPARTAN for about an hour and twenty minutes while the
IAE was inflated and experiment operations were conducted.Following those
operations, John
Casper fired Endeavour's jets to begin separating from the
vicinity of the
SPARTAN. The jet firing initially moved Endeavour
farther above the satellite, and the shuttle was about 900 feet away at the
time the IAE was jettisoned from
SPARTAN. The jettisoned IAE moved in front of and
below than
SPARTAN, while the separation burn performed by
Endeavour moved the shuttle above and behind the satellite at a rate of almost
two and a half nautical miles per orbit. During the next day, Endeavour ranged
as much as 40-60 nautical miles behind the satellite before again closing
in.

Endeavour returned to the vicinity of
SPARTAN-207 on Flight Day three of the mission to
retrieve the satellite. The final phase of the rendezvous began when Endeavour
reached a point eight nautical miles behind the satellite and the Terminal
Phase Initiation burn was performed by the shuttle, putting Endeavour on a
course to intercept the
SPARTAN. As Endeavour closed the final eight
nautical miles, there was an opportunity for four small midcourse correction
firings of the shuttle steering jets to fine-tune its course toward
SPARTAN. Also during this time, Marc
Garneau extended the shuttle's mechanical arm into the
position for retrieval of the satellite.Shortly after the fourth and final
mid-course correction, John
Casper took over manual control of Endeavour's flight. At the
time John Casper began manually flying Endeavour, the shuttle was about
2,500 feet directly below the satellite. John
Casper flew the shuttle to a point about 400 feet directly in
front of
SPARTAN before closing to within 35 feet. As John
Casper aligned Endeavour with
SPARTAN, Marc
Garneau moved the mechanical arm into place to lock onto the
SPARTAN grapple fixture. Once captured, Marc
Garneau lowered
SPARTAN back into the cargo bay and latch it in place
for its return to Earth.

The Satellite Test Unit (STU),
part of the Passive Aerodynamically Stabilized Magnetically Damped Satellite
(PAMS) test, was deployed from Endeavour on Flight Day
four of the mission. Although the satellite was be retrieved, Endeavour
subsequently rendezvoused three times with the satellite to acquire satellite
attitude information during the rest of the mission.After
STU was
ejected from the payload bay, Endeavour fired its engines to separate from the
satellite, aiming to reach a point about eight nautical miles behind
STU over
the next two orbits. From that point, Endeavour will immediately began a
rendezvous with the satellite, firing its engines in a Terminal Phase
Initiation (TI) burn which put the shuttle on a course to intercept a point
about 2,000 feet behind the
STU.As
Endeavour closed the eight nautical miles, the shuttle had the opportunity to
perform as many as four small midcourse correction firings, if needed, to fine
tune the course toward the satellite. When the shuttle crossed directly behind
the STU,
Commander John
Casper fired the shuttle steering jets to stationkeep at that
position as
PAMS experiment operations were performed. John
Casper maintained Endeavour at a distance of 2,000-2,300 feet
behind the STU for about an hour and forty-five minutes while the
experiment work was under way. The experiments consisted of video recordings of
the on-orbit attitude of the satellite as passed through the upper atmosphere
of low-Earth orbit. Once the experiment runs were completed, John
Casper fired Endeavour's engines to separate from the
vicinity of the satellite, putting the shuttle on a course that had it range as
far as 100 nautical miles behind the
STU.Endeavour revisited the satellite for further
attitude measurements on both Flight Day seven and Flight Day eight of the
mission, performing the same basic rendezvous, stationkeeping, and separation
sequence starting from a point eight nautical miles behind the satellite.
During the Flight Day seven and eight operations, Endeavour had stationkeep at
a distance of 2,000-2,300 feet behind the
STU for
about six hours on each day.

During the flight the crew performed
microgravity research aboard the commercially owned and operated SPACEHAB
module. The SPACEHAB single module carried nearly 3,000 pounds (1,400 kg) of
experiments and support equipment for 12 commercial space product development
payloads in the areas of biotechnology, electronic materials, polymers and
agriculture as well as several experiments for other
NASA payload organizations. One of these, the
Commercial Float Zone Facility (CFZF) was developed through international
collaboration between the U.S., Canada, and Germany. It heated various samples
of electronic and semiconductor material through the float-zone technique.
Another facility on SPACEHAB was the Space Experiment Facility (SEF) which grew
crystals by vapor diffusion.

The Advanced Separation Process for
Organic Materials (ADSEP) enhanced separation technologies for medical
products. Separation, purification and classification of cells are limiting
factors in biomedical research and pharmaceutical drug development. Advanced
separation technology was designed to foster separation capabilities for
terrestrial commercial application and microgravity research. This particular
mission, in collaboration with biomedical researchers, focused on understanding
gravitational effects on the manufacture of recombinant hemoglobin products.
This area may have significant impact on blood transfusion products where
transfusion of hemoglobin rather than whole blood can reduce complications such
as blood rejection, infectious disease transmission, and blood contamination in
areas without suitable storage capability.

The Commercial Generic
Bioprocessing Apparatus (CBGA) housed a number of small test tube-sized
fluid mixing syringes controlled at several different temperatures. The
versatility of this apparatus allowed investigations on a variety of molecular,
cellular, tissue and small animal and plant systems. For this flight the
apparatus was configured into four temperature controlled lockers holding 272
individual experiments. Sponsored by BioServe Space Technologies (NASA's Commercial Center at the University of
Colorado, Boulder) a number of specific commercial objectives were pursued in
partnership with several of the Center's industrial affiliates. These included
evaluation of pharmaceutical production of bacterial and fungal systems with
Bristol-Myers Squibb, crystallization of oligonucleotides-RNA to gain 3-D
structural information for drug design in AIDS research with NeXstar and Amgen,
administration of a proprietary chemical to enhance bone marrow macrophage
differentiation with Chiron Corp., and tests of a proprietary cell growth
inhibitors (cancer research) with Synchrocell, Lockheed Martin and the Kansas
State University Research Foundation.

The Plant Generic Bioprocessing
Apparatus (PGBA) was flown for the first time. This two-locker plant growth
chamber has been developed by BioServe Space Technologies in collaboration with
the Wisconsin Center for Automation and Robotics at the University of Wisconsin
- Madison. The plant growth area of the chamber was 12² by 10² with a
10² plant height and 2.5² root depth. In collaboration with
Bristol-Myers Squibb, the commercial goal was to investigate the change in the
production of secondary metabolites in microgravity.

The IMMUNE-3
experiment was a commercial middeck payload sponsored by BioServe Space
Technologies and Kansas State University, Manhattan. The goal was to test the
ability of Insulin-like Growth Factor to prevent or reduce the detrimental
effects of space flight on the immune and skeletal systems of rats. Space
flight has been shown to induce alterations in immune responses and reductions
in skeletal development in rats; this may model immune disorders and impaired
skeletal development on Earth. A demonstrated ability to counter reduced bone
formation and immune system impairment accompanying spaceflight may provide new
product markets for Chiron on Earth and a future therapeutic for long-term
space missions.

Inside the Space Shuttle Endeavour's payload
Hitchhiker (HH) experiment carrier managed by the Goddard Space Flight
Center were four experiments called Technology Experiments for Advancing
Missions in Space (TEAMS). These experiments included: The Global Positioning
System (GPS) Attitude and Navigation Experiment (GANE); the
Vented Tank Resupply Experiment (VTRE); the Liquid Metal Thermal Experiment
(LMTE); and the Passive Aerodynamically Stabilized Magnetically Damped
Satellite (PAMS). The experiments were flown together at reduced
cost and with the Hitchhiker carrier providing the needed resources (power,
data, etc.) to each experiment.

Secondary experiments on the flight
included the Brilliant Eyes Ten Kelvin Sorption Cryocooler Experiment
(BETSCE), the Aquatic Research Facility (ARF) and the Biological Research
In a Canister (BRIC) experiment.

The
Aquatic Research Facility (ARF) was a joint Canadian Space Agency (CSA)/NASA project with
CSA
providing flight hardware,
NASA providing flight opportunities, and both agencies
sharing in the scientific investigations. This was the first flight of ARF, a
Canadian designed and built middeck payload which allowed sophisticated
investigations of a wide range of small aquatic species. The facility permitted
scientists to investigate the process of fertilization, embryo formation and
differentiation, development of calcified tissue and feeding behaviors of small
aquatic organisms.

The Biological Research In a Canister (BRIC)
07 was the subject of research for
NASA at the University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ.
Spaceflight has been shown to effect the endocrine system of crewmembers. This
study should aid in the discovery of the mechanism(s) behind one endocrine
system in insects which may aid in research on endocrine systems in general,
including human systems.

A Coca-Cola fountain dispenser (officially a
Fluids Generic Bioprocessing Apparatus-2 or FGBA-2) was developed for use on
STS-77 as a test bed to determine if carbonated
beverages can be produced from separately stored carbon dioxide, water and
flavored syrups and determine if the resulting fluids can be made available for
consumption without bubble nucleation and resulting foam formation. The unit
held 1.65 liters each of Coca-Cola and Diet Coke.